help! Pit

I too am looking for the same "miracle". Although the speed of his laps are quite impressive.

Have you enrolled your baby in obediance classes? Not only is it good for basic commands that will help you control him at these times but it is a great bonding experience and a chance for your dog to learn that he needs to respect your word. Pit bulls are extremely energetic dogs and a high amount of exersice is always helpful but I know what you mean about visitors, they can get very excited and can be a hindrance when you are trying to enjoy company. This breed strives on leadership and REALLY needs structure in his life or he will become his own boss.
By owing a pit bull you have to take a extra step in their obediance because their behavior reflects all pit bull owners. What if a friend brought over a young child, would you feel confident that your dog would behave itself? I cant say that the child woulnd percieve your dogs actions as aggressive. Think of it this way, it is in your dog's best intrest to be obediant. He will be able to accompany your family to more places instead of being left at home beacuse he is "to excitable, dosnt have manners, or its easier to just leave him at home". This past weekend we took my pit bull and my sisiters to the river with otehr families and dogs all around us but we were able to keep the dogs off leash BECAUSE they listened to us when we told them to stay near our camp. When I tried this a year ago when Rory was your dog's age it was a nightmare, she high tailed it straight to another family's site, got sand all over their balnkets and aggravated their dog to the point where I had to drag her back to our camp, it was embarressing and did not help the other family's opinion of pit bulls. Please consider obediance for your benefit as well as your dogs! There is nothing more prideful then walking through the farmer's market with a stoic, regal pit bull that has the best of manners!

What I would suggest is use a combination of +R and compulsion at this point.  A 9 month old Pit is getting BIG and STRONG.
 
The compulsion part of this exercise is really just putting on a pinch collar and having the dog on lead (don't jump on me about the pinch collar people).  The pinch is not to hurt the dog at all, just to correct and give it a friendly reminder.
 
Invite a few people over and have your dog on his training collar and on lead.  As they enter the room, do NOT allow him to say hello right away.  Make him stay in a sit and feed him cookies for complying.  If he gets up, just give a lot pop up on the lead and say "Ah ah! Sit!"  When he again complies give him a cookie.  Also, as the people enter, have a cookie jar by the door and tell them each to take a handful and put the treats in their pockets.
 
When the people are in the center of the room, give him a new command "Let's go say hello!"  For the initial contact when he approaches, YOU tell him to sit, and then have THEM give him a cookie.  This is the positive reinforcer.  He gets a cookie for sitting nicely.
 
If he jumps up, just give a light pop "Ah ah, sit!".  Allow them to tell your dog to sit as well.  The dog should learn to sit for anybody that tells them to (in the cases of pets).  The dog will learn quickly I get nothing if I jump up.  Do this a few times, and every time the dog sits, make it wait longer and longer for the cookie.  Eventually you can fade the cookie out and just give praise instead.
 
The ONLY reason I suggest a training collar on your dog is because at this age he is just getting too big, strong, and insistant to do the "turn around and ignore" trick.  It can be dangerous.  Pinch collars are great tools when used correctly, and in my experience, the dogs do NOT respect the flat collar like they do the pinch collar and it hinders training IMO.

ORIGINAL: Xeph

What I would suggest is use a combination of +R and compulsion at this point.  A 9 month old Pit is getting BIG and STRONG.

The compulsion part of this exercise is really just putting on a pinch collar and having the dog on lead (don't jump on me about the pinch collar people).  The pinch is not to hurt the dog at all, just to correct and give it a friendly reminder.

Invite a few people over and have your dog on his training collar and on lead.  As they enter the room, do NOT allow him to say hello right away.  Make him stay in a sit and feed him cookies for complying.  If he gets up, just give a lot pop up on the lead and say "Ah ah! Sit!"  When he again complies give him a cookie.  Also, as the people enter, have a cookie jar by the door and tell them each to take a handful and put the treats in their pockets.

When the people are in the center of the room, give him a new command "Let's go say hello!"  For the initial contact when he approaches, YOU tell him to sit, and then have THEM give him a cookie.  This is the positive reinforcer.  He gets a cookie for sitting nicely.

If he jumps up, just give a light pop "Ah ah, sit!".  Allow them to tell your dog to sit as well.  The dog should learn to sit for anybody that tells them to (in the cases of pets).  The dog will learn quickly I get nothing if I jump up.  Do this a few times, and every time the dog sits, make it wait longer and longer for the cookie.  Eventually you can fade the cookie out and just give praise instead.

The ONLY reason I suggest a training collar on your dog is because at this age he is just getting too big, strong, and insistant to do the "turn around and ignore" trick.  It can be dangerous.  Pinch collars are great tools when used correctly, and in my experience, the dogs do NOT respect the flat collar like they do the pinch collar and it hinders training IMO.

 
There you again! Lets use force to get our dogs into submission! Kyhourglass, if you use a training collar please investigate all of your options. You can even go to a local petsmart and ask the traners if they have samples of the different collars that you can try out in the store to see whats best for your dog. By posting on the internet you leave yourself open to a lot of peole suggestions, opinions, and experiences. Take them in stride and decide which one might be best for you and your dog. Unfortunatly Xeph and I disagree on what training collars work best but I think we can both agree on the fact that different methods work best for different dogs, always have a proffesional show you how to properly use it (free service at most pet stores), adn they are to be used in conjunction with training and not to be relied on for complete control. Hopefully ALL of us agree that obediance is the number one key!

There you again! Lets use force to get our dogs into submission!

You know I get REALLY sick of you always insinuating that I'm nasty just because I use training collars along with +R!
 
Force is alpha rolling a dog, force is grabbing a dog's cheeks to make it look at you, force is yanking a dog by it's collar to get it to lay down!  I do NOT advocate any of those things! 
 
I do however advocate safety, and when a medium/large breed dog becomes 9 months old, you just CANNOT use completely passive methods anymore, because people can get hurt!
 
It's all a matter of consequence "If I jump, I get popped, if I don't jump, I don't get popped AND I get a cookie!"  I'm not telling the OP to yank the dog off it's feet, I'm not telling them to crank on the dog, I'm telling them to give  a light pop on the collar.  The dog isn't going to die, and it's going to prevent people from getting scratched, injured, and even bitten!

WHOA folks.....calm down
 
There are several levels of training that are acceptable to this breed and you're BOTH right to those extents, now neither of you are helping the OP if you're going to argue between each other over who's training tips are best

KY,
 If you haven't enrolled your dog in a training class that is my first suggestion. This will teach you and your dog the structured behavior needed for this breed. It's a little late but better late then never.
This is a friendly breed who wants to be on their people and friends all the time.
 
This dog needs to learn a solid sit stay or down stay and OFF. A trainer will give you execises weekly to practice and as long as YOU continue to impliment them and live by them there is no reason why you shouldn't have a great companion for years to come.
 
Some members of the breed can do well with a flat collar, some need a choke and some really strong willed strong energied dogs will need a prong collar. A trainer will help you through this by your dogs responses

Good advice Jaime.
 
And I have NO problems with somebody else offering other training tips!  Sometimes they ARE better than mine.   What I take issue with is that every single time I post about potentially using a training collar, sheprano jumps on me about "forcing" dogs, and it's getting extremely old.
 
Go ahead, share other tips, but I'd appreciate it if every sentence didn't begin by making me sound like an animal abuser just because I suggest a pinch or other training collar >.<

I think its important for people to have all the resources available to them and I think that I did very well trying to explain our different opinions with respect. So I vented my frusteration at your eagerness to use the same training tool for all obediance problems, woop de doo cry me a river. I wasnt bashing you personally or your character just your methods so if you take it personally then that is a problem you need to work on yourself. I dont go home crying because somebody hundreds of miles away on the www doesnt agree with me or was rude.
I vented my frusteration and took a step in being cordial by stating we disagreed and tried to move along and help the poster even stating that regardless of what route she chose to consult a trainer and try out obediance WHICH we both agree on. I never even said that your method was inhumane, wouldnt work, or was incorrect I simply insinuated that it isnt the only option and that different methods work for differnet dogs

woop de doo cry me a river. I wasnt bashing you personally or your character just your methods so if you take it personally then that is a problem you need to work on yourself. I dont go home crying because somebody hundreds of miles away on the www doesnt agree with me or was rude.

 
And this is the problem in this thread....Rudeness is a reason for suspension. Respect the people here no matter what their techniques might be, it isn't personal in fact it isn't even about the two of you...it's about helping the person who came here looking for suggestions who's thread is now bogged down with posts like this and isn't getting solutions...

I think that the technic really depends on the dog, personally.  Some dogs do better with a prong, period.  I doesn't mean you're beating the dog into submission, it means that you're using what works.

There you again! Lets use force to get our dogs into submission!
You know I get REALLY sick of you always insinuating that I'm nasty just because I use training collars along with +R

Actually, if you are using choke chains to correct a dog, you are *not* using positive reinforcement.  For an explanation of terms, see this site:
[linkhttp://www.dushkin.com/connectext/psy/ch06/posneg.mhtml]www.dushkin.com/connectext/psy/ch06/posneg.mhtml[/link]

At any rate, this dog sounds like a normal adolescent with a case of the "zoomies" mixed with a bit of obnoxiousness.  Instead of assuming that he needs "correction", why not just assume that, due to his youth and inexperience, he simply needs "training".
If he is food or toy motivated, perhaps he would do well with clicker training (www.clickertraining.com to find a trainer). 

At any rate, this dog sounds like a normal adolescent with a case of the "zoomies" mixed with a bit of obnoxiousness. Instead of assuming that he needs "correction", why not just assume that, due to his youth and inexperience, he simply needs "training".
If he is food or toy motivated, perhaps he would do well with clicker training (www.clickertraining.com to find a trainer).

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

Very well put we have tried the cookie thing and I am using a choker ( with my vets help) and caution. I live in the country, there are no classes. So I educate myself and use his doctor.
Please understand (Cain), isnt always out of control, and we dont have problems with children at all. Its the adults, that have always come in and played with him since he was 8 wks old. Hes just simply excited, and loves to give kisses.
He thinks hes still little.[]

First, get rid of the choke collar.  It will damage his trachea, and will not hold a Pit without causing a lot of sputtering.  If you really must use equipment, try a prong instead.  It may look more barbaric, but it isn't - reason is that if the dog stops pulling on it, it releases! 
(Just for the lurkers...) Unfortunately, you seem to have made the same mistake many pup owners do - they WAIT.  Then, when the pup is too big to contain physically, they don't know what to do.  Training classes should begin very, very early in a pup's life, so that they never get the option to practice poor habits.  I started Sequoyah in class as soon as I got her home - 10 weeks old.  But, I have had pups in my classes as young as 8 weeks.  More dogs get rejected or killed due to behavior issues than ever die of Parvo, so I opt for training even before shots are completed, knowing the risks of both.